


far traveler

by americaninja



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Light Angst, WORDS LEFT UNSAID ARE NOW BEING SAID, no explicit ship content but you can read it as such if you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 15:04:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18967666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americaninja/pseuds/americaninja
Summary: A ghost has come back, ready to say the words he didn't get the chance to say before his dreadfully inconvenient death.





	1. to jester

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the week or so of downtime after the Nein moved in the Xhorhaus. Xhorhouse? Whatever.  
> There's at least one full day between each chapter.

“You’ve come a long way, you know.”

Jester blinked and looked around her moonlit room, brow furrowing slightly. Then she saw him in the darkest corner—the Traveler, quietly resplendent in his green hooded cloak that billowed in a wind she couldn’t feel.

But it wasn’t his voice that had spoken.

She scratched at her ear in confusion. “Uh, hi? I’m glad to see you, but… I wasn’t expecting you!”

The Traveler just smiled. “I’ve brought you someone,” he said softly. He vanished, and in his place was a tall man whose purple skin was covered in scars and tattoos. His long, colorful coat was missing, leaving his tail to slowly lash back and forth unhindered. There was a deep, dark stain over the front of his shirt, and a trail of crusty blood made a ghastly line down his chin. But it was him. It was him.

Jester sucked in a breath and felt tears immediately spring forth. “Molly?” she whispered.

He smiled, and his red eyes crinkled. “Mostly,” he said. There was a phantasmal edge to his voice; it whistled like a breeze and echoed in her skull.

Jester leapt off the bed and ran to him, but when she threw her arms around him, they grasped nothing. Bitter cold filled her bones. She pulled back and sniffled loudly, tears beginning to pour down her cheeks. “Oh, Molly… I’m sorry! I-I-I should have b-been there for you! I could h-have healed you! You sh-shouldn’t have died!” She started to sob.

Molly reached out and brushed his ghostly hand over her cheek. The cold zinged through her like lightning, but she didn’t care. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It was… my time, I guess. You can only be born again so often. Besides, I know you would have done the same for me.”

Jester tried to grasp at words, but none would come. So she settled for stumbling back to her bed, giving in to her emotions, and crying as hard as she ever had. Molly sat down beside her. His transparent body seemed to pulse slightly with lavender light as he looked around her room. “Look at this. Your own keep in the middle of Xhorhas. Trying to end a war from the inside. You’ve all done such incredible things, and I know you’ll do even more of them in the future. I’m so, so proud of you.”

Jester coughed and looked at him. “You are?”

“Would I be here otherwise?”

A giggle escaped her. “True. But… why did you come back?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Took me long enough, didn’t it? I’m not back for good, no. Not allowed. But I wanted to visit you, and Fjord, and Yasha, since you guys didn’t get to say goodbye properly.” He laughed a little at that before continuing. ”Anyway, I don’t think I’ll get to them tonight. My time here is limited. So here I am, saying my goodbyes to you.” He put his hand on hers, and this time, the cold was almost comforting.

A wobbly smile crossed Jester’s face. “I’m flattered.” She sighed and wiped her tears away. “I miss you so much. We all do. I always wonder… what you would do. How you would take to our life here. What we’re doing.”

Molly shrugged. “I don’t know what I would do, to be honest. I never really know until I’ve done it. Now, there’s something I want to say to you in particular. You and I, we know—or, uh, knew, in a sense—what it’s like to look… like this.” He gestured to his horns. “And we both deflected it in different ways, me with my showmanship and you with your endless sunshine. I admire that. Always have. Sometimes I wished I could have had a little bit of that sunshine. I don’t know if it would have been the same coming from me, but it was something to strive for all the same.

“You’re a good, good person, Jester Lavorre. So please, don’t worry about me. I miss you, of course. But know I’m watching all of you from the beyond, and I couldn’t be happier. You little rascals really are going to end this war, aren’t you? Can’t wait to see that.” He stood, and she followed suit.

She couldn’t help it. She tried to hug him again. The result was the same, of course, but this time he hugged her back, as best as he could. Then he stepped back and turned away.

“Wait!” Jester said.

Molly paused and turned back. “Yes?”  
  
“I know why you’re here now. But… _how_ are you here?”

A grin stretched over his face. “Oh, I made some friends. Your Traveler, when he heard how I wanted to visit you, was kind enough to join me so I wouldn’t scare the living breath out of you. And I have… connections to the Matron of Ravens, you might say.”

A shadow stirred in the corner. Jester and Molly’s eyes slid towards it as a figure formed out of the darkness. It was a half-elven man with blue feathers braided into his long black hair. Large raven wings bristled from his back. He locked eyes with Jester and raised an eyebrow, a thin smirk passing over his face. Molly went to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Goodbye, my dear Jester. Remember, do good.” With that, both he and the half-elf melted into the night.

Jester’s heart skipped a beat. Reluctantly, she crawled into bed. The tears were still coming, but they had slowed. Nevertheless, there was comfort in her heart. She had finally gotten to say something to him.

As she turned on her side and drifted off to sleep, she thought she felt Molly’s hand on her shoulder, one last time, but she wasn’t quite sure.


	2. to fjord

Jester wasn’t great at keeping secrets, and Fjord could tell that she was wrestling with a big one. The way she spoke, the way she walked, even the way she sat, all pointed to a secret burning her from the inside out. He thought about asking her whether or not she wanted to tell, but he figured that if she was holding on like this, it must be really important for her to keep. So he decided to keep quiet for now.

He couldn’t stop himself from wondering what her secret was as he went to sleep, but those thoughts were gone when he woke up in the middle of the night, hacking up saltwater again. The words of his wrathful patron pounded at his mind as he coughed and gasped desperately for breath that didn’t scorch his throat. Then he heard a rustle.

Fjord looked up with eyes that brimmed with tears of anger and pain and saw a man standing in the corner. He had pointed ears and was dressed all in black. Three daggers glinted on his belt. 

“What the— Who the hell are you? Get out of my room!” Fjord snapped. He leapt out of bed and pointed at the man with the falchion that appeared in his hand as he brought it up and forward. “Leave now!”

The man smiled. “Okay,” he said in a low voice. He vanished in a burst of feathers, and when the feathers drifted to the ground, Fjord saw… no. No, it couldn’t be.

“Yes, it’s me,” Molly said, a toothy smile emerging.

Fjord’s grip loosened on his falchion. It fell from his hand and slid into its pocket dimension before it could clatter to the ground. His jaw dropped. “Im… Impossible. You—you’re dead. Right?”

Molly looked down at his ethereal body. “My my, I certainly am. Is that supposed to stop me from dropping in?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant, I just—” Fjord stumbled back. “I don’t understand. I have—ah, I have so many questions.” He sank to the ground and weakly wiped the saltwater and tears from his face. 

Molly crouched beside him and placed a transparent hand on his shoulder. It was cold, colder than the waters of the Diver’s Grave, but he barely noticed. “I wanted to say goodbye. Properly. You know?” 

Fjord took a deep breath and forced himself to look into Molly’s eyes. “Yeah. I know. God, I just—I missed you. It hurt so much. It… still hurts, really. So seeing you again is, well, unreal. I’d kinda accepted that I wouldn’t get this chance, but now you’re here.”

Molly smirked. “It’s a lot to take in, huh?” He brushed his hand over the dark stain on his shirt. “Chin up, now. I’m about to make a lovely speech.”

Fjord laughed. “Great. Speech away then, you damn peacock.”

Molly winked. “Gladly.” Then his face became more serious. “You’ve been all over the place, huh? Became a pirate. Almost freed your ambiguously-evil leviathan patron from the depths of the sea. Probably good you didn’t, by the way. Ah, but who am I to tell you what to do? I’m  _ dead _ . Anyway, now you’re here, in the capital of the ‘enemy’, trying to end a war. God  _ damn _ , am I proud of you all.”

Fjord smiled weakly. “I’m... glad to hear that. Really, I am. I guess I haven’t been as much as I used to, but every now and then, I think about you. I think about what you would do if you were here. And don’t get me wrong, I love Caduceus. He’s great. A real upstanding fella, probably nicer than half of us combined. But he’s not you. And when I look at him, sometimes I think of you instead. Is… that wrong?

“Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m glad to hear you miss me, because I miss you. It’s lonely in the beyond, and as grateful as I am to be able to watch you, it’s not the same. Whatever happens, though, I think I’ll be proud of you. You’re a good person, you know? You don’t always think so, but you are. You just need to work at it and eventually you’ll believe it.”

Fjord blinked, and tears fell. He’d been trying to keep them back, but he couldn’t any longer. “You think so?”

“I know so.” Molly pressed his forehead to Fjord’s and smiled. “You’ll do great things, I promise.”

Fjord sighed. “I… I believe you. I think.”

Molly stood and offered his hand to Fjord. There was nothing to grab, but Fjord placed his hand in Molly’s anyway and pulled himself up, forcing himself to ignore the deep chill climbing up his arm. 

“Oh, by the way, I’m sure Jester is dying to tell you about when I visited her. Maybe talk to her tomorrow before she explodes.”

Fjord gaped at Molly. “You already visited her? Damn, that explains a lot. I figured she was holding something back, but this… I never could have guessed.”

Molly smiled. “Fair enough. I plan to see Yasha within the next few days, so don’t tell her about this, okay?”

“What about the others? Caleb, Beau, Nott, Caduceus?”

Molly frowned. “I... don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready to face them. Someday, perhaps. For now, I just… wanted to see you. And Jester, and Yasha. Since we didn’t have those last moments.”

“Right. Okay. I understand.” Fjord wiped at his eyes again. “Dammit Molly, I did not need to cry tonight.  _ God _ , I wish I could have been there to save you. You shouldn’t have died.”

“Crying isn’t a sin, darling. And I don’t know if you  _ could  _ have saved me. But I appreciate the thought. I know you would have done everything you could to keep me alive, even at the cost of your own life. I’m glad you’re alive still, though. I truly am.” Molly hesitated for the briefest of seconds before putting his arms around Fjord, who was too stunned to return the favor. Then he stepped back into the corner. The man from earlier appeared again, and something registered dimly in the back of Fjord’s mind. Were those… wings? No, it couldn’t be. He didn’t look like an aasimar. 

The man nodded to Fjord, put a hand on Molly’s shoulder, and they both faded away, leaving him alone.

When he went back to sleep, there were no malignant yellow eyes or booming threats from Uk’otoa. There were only memories of Molly.


	3. to yasha

Jester was up to something, and now Fjord was in on it too. Yasha knew it from the way they talked in hushed tones, the way they kept to the secluded areas of the mansion. Whenever she approached the pair of them, they would very abruptly and obviously change the subject. Why? What was their secret? Had she done something wrong? Were they mad at her? The thought did not sit well with her.

Her sleep was restless, even more so than usual. Though her dreams were not plagued with lightning and the thunderous voice of the Stormlord, she still awoke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. She took a moment to breathe deeply, letting her eyes travel over the flowers that Jester had painted. The sight calmed her, until her eyes fell on a figure standing in the corner, hidden in shadow.

“Huh? Who are you?” Yasha said as she slowly pulled herself out of bed. Her hand clasped the hilt of the Magician’s Judge standing by her bed, though she did not point it at the figure.

The figure stepped forward into the moonlight, and she immediately let go of the sword and fell to her knees. Her wing bones twinged with pain, and her hands began to shake. “No… This is a trick,” she croaked. She looked out at the night. Cloudless though it was, she couldn’t help but cry, “How dare you! Why would you trick me like this?”

“It’s no trick,” Molly said, and Yasha felt her heart melt. She pulled her eyes away from the window and faced him. Though he was transparent and blood-soaked, the pride and glory she had known shone through, as powerful in death as he had been in life.

“But… how? I saw—I saw your grave,” she whispered. Her trembling hand reached out for him.

He put his hand on hers, and the cold instantly brought her to full consciousness. She wasn’t dreaming. This wasn’t a test or a trick from the Stormlord. Her best friend, her confidant, the one person she had truly trusted since she left her tribe, was there. He was a ghost, but he was there.

“I’m here because there’s so much I need to say to you. I know, I know it’s been so long since… that day. But I’ve been watching all of you and your work. And I’ve especially been watching you, Yasha. My heartbroken angel. My dearest friend. I adore you, and I miss you more than anything. One day, we were just a couple of misfits in a circus, handing out flyers and bringing in suckers. You were a runaway and I was a revenant. And then we became part of a group. We had friends. We were  _ heroes _ .”

Yasha gasped. Tears began to pour down her cheeks. “I-I wasn’t. I’m n-not. You were the hero. You were the one who f-fought for what was right. Leave every p-place better than you found it, you s-said. But I just… ran. I’m a c-coward.” She started to sob.

Molly gently ran his hand down her face. Her tears became painfully cold. “You’re not,” he whispered. “You’re anything but. Look at you. You’re working to end a war. You’re facing your homeland again, despite what it took from you. That’s the bravest thing I can imagine.”

Yasha tried to speak, but the lump in her throat kept her from her words. Instead, she just wailed, an agonized, heartrending wail like the one she had let out when she had seen his coat alone in the snow.

“That’s it,” Molly murmured. He moved to her side, wrapped his tail around her back, and laid his head on her shoulder. The shock made her howl even louder, and she could feel her skeletal wings desperately trying to burst forth, but she kept them down.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps. There was a gentle knocking on her door. “Yasha? Are you okay?” Jester said.

Yasha stumbled to her feet and approached the door, but she did not open it. “Y-Yes. I’m just… having a bad night,” she said weakly.

“Okay,” Jester said, worry laced through her voice. “If you need me, you can come to my room.” After a moment, she walked back down the hall. 

Yasha turned and wiped her tears away, breathing heavily. Molly was still sitting on the floor. He smirked. “Oh, I’m giving you a bad night?”

She coughed and allowed a thin smile to pass over her face. “You know what I mean.”

He stood and pressed a frozen kiss to her forehead. “I do. I do. Talk to her and Fjord tomorrow. They know. Now, goodbye, my angel. Know that I am with you, whatever you do. You are a hero. Never forget it.”

Yasha smiled properly and looked into his red eyes, at the tattoos that wound across his body, at the blood on his chin and his shirt. “I’ll try not to.”

Molly stepped back. A man dressed in black armor, with elven ears and large raven-like wings protruding from his back, appeared. He brushed his long hair out of his face and blinked languidly at her. Then he took Molly’s hand, and they were gone.

Yasha began to cry again, but this time, they were tears of joy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
